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2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 30

Okay, today is the final day of the poeming part of this challenge. Beginning tomorrow (if not already), you’ll begin the process of revising and assembling a 10-20 page poetry chapbook manuscript. Click here to review the guidelines.

Here’s Violet’s prompt: Write a milk poem. This could be about the moo-juice kind of milk. Or it could explore milk metaphorically, as in the expression “milk of human kindness.” Of course it could also be about the act of milking something. And no, it doesn’t have to be nourishing.

Robert’s attempt at a Milk Poem:

“The Final Poem”

The final prompt, the final day,
and here I am milking the situation
as if tomorrow won’t come, as if
it won’t bring more prompts, more
poems, more lines to break.

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83 thoughts on “2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 30”

I missed the last few days of the challenge, as I have been in hospital after a heart attack and 3 lots of surgery in 4 days. Tillybud has sent me the prompts I missed, but I don’t know that I have the mojo to write to them. Can I still submit my chapbook poems – I wrote to every prompt up to 21 November?

It’s a dangerous job,
but necessary. Caution
and coordination
(prerequisite skills
for the position – both
sorely needed and surely
lacking) must be
carefully cultivated,
patiently applied, else
one risks a most
venomous sting

STAYIN’ ALIVE
I lay beside green pastures and conspire
to find the ways of keeping what passes through
unhindered by too much civilization, all the undue
interference of what doesn’t belong. I tire
of the calls of them that complicate my life
with devices that are supposed to ensure
that my existence won’t be encumbered, that lure
me into a gallery lit with attractions, rife

with lights, camera action, and the uneasy feel
somebody is watching me, they want to know
where I am going, leading me to follow their flow,
no, it’s here where the sheep graze, I kneel
over a patch of flowers gazing at butterflies
congregating about the petals drinking their fill . . .
off in the distance my feet sense the thrill
of the sound of the sheep, the voices rise

in the distance. Always there, reminding me
where they are in the circle of life, where I am,
biting away at the flowers when I just came
following them back to the pen, I let them be . . .
mother lambs at the milking, first the flock
then the machines in tins, carrying them in
to the plant where the liquid turns, my head spins
how everything goes round comes round the clock.
Zev Davis

Dear Santa, I will leave milk and cookies on the coffee table this time. I’m sorry I sorta blamed you last year when mama asked who chipped her half moon tableinthe hallway . She would never believe me if I told her the real truth. I hope you understand. Don’t you have children? Didn’t they break things? I bet you helped them get out of trouble with Your wife. I bet you brought them a computer they really really needed. You are a good dad. I can tell. Ps I’m going to make sure my dog will be in the basement so he won’t bite you.

Participating in this month’s activities is my first ever attempt of anything of the sort. Must admit it was way beyond me to keep up – made about 50% (too many irons in the fire). Enjoyed getting to meet ya’ll through your poetry and posts. Meandered thorough several of your sites and blogs and decided to give that a go as well. Stop in sometime and say howdy, you are welcome at my campfire anytime. Thanks everyone!

Nov 29 – Birth
Nov 30 – Milk
(Combined)

The Fawn

The doe gives birth, alone, in pain,
Slowly new life emerges, one last strain.
Carefully the mother cleans her young,
Daylight breaks, christened by the sun.

Hastily the mother nuzzles the new gent,
The air spilling her fresh-blood scent.
The fawn reaches its knees awkward, and feeble,
Just minutes ago in its mother’s womb, fetal.

Legs shaking, the fawn takes its first stance,
It’s a miracle, its life, its creation’s dance.
The fawn drinks in warm mother’s milk,
Its coat glistens, as new woven silk.

Slowly, the mother leads her babe away,
Deep in the tall grass, she coaxes him to stay.
Carefully she leaves him all alone,
The fawn lays motionless, camouflaged stone.

You could easily walk past and not take note,
The new babe hiding, shadows blending in its coat.
It lies there fearless, sure of its mother’s return,
All things new, everything to learn.

The doe hides close, with a watchful eye,
Ready as any mother, to defend till she die.
Both rest long in the early spring sun,
Life is but a miracle and for the fawn – day one.

The Lord’s gift of nature, and all its majesty,
From highest mountain, through sky, to deepest sea.
All His creation, all His wonders, all – for His glory,
No doubt, no question, what else it could be?

Walk from town to town, ask
the wealthier households if
they need portraits, or want
their walls decorated. That’s
how itinerant painters made
their way. They brought their
own brushes, poured pigment
and lime into buckets of curds,
each working his own secret
formula.

When children see the murals
on farmhouse walls, they ask
why there are no forests, only
hills. The forests were cut down
for farming, we tell them. There
were no forests here then. Why
does the tree in the garden look
like that, they ask. Why does it
look like a fountain.

Those were elm trees, we tell
them. You could shimmy up
the branches and slide right
down to the end; the branch
would bend to the ground, you
could hop off and do it again.
Can we grow trees like that,
they ask us. No, we tell them.
Not anymore.

Because it is so challenging to post — I am going to post collectively today (30th) several poems I have not before poster successfully.
\
22 PARADISE LUNE (Kelly)
Any place I am
with you is
paradise to me.

23 DEEP (Fib)
I
long
to once
again stand
with you, feel and then
share love’s music that’s in our hearts.

23 (DEEP) FIRE (Nonet)
In the quiet night, below moon and stars,
I build a fire of memory
and in the burning coals, I
seek to reclaim the one
hot, hidden spark
used for igniting
love’s first
flame.

24 The Truth about
(Haiku)
The truth about life
comes when minds and hearts open,
look beyond themself

22 PARADISE — Etheree
I
was your
sweet princess,
spark in your eyes.
I loved you closeness,
attention to our needs
wrapped up in warm tenderness.
You and I together always
On earth we had our own paradise.
We did anything, everything as one.

25 PARADISE LOST—(Nonet)
Caring, helping, and always close by,
filling my life, my days and nights,
choosing, touching, holding tight.
What I thought was love, I
came to realize
was just control.
Paradise,
somehow
lost.

If in Santa you believe,
don’t forget this Christmas Eve…Galletas con leche!

Done! I won’t be submitting ’cause I don’t have enough decent pieces for this challenge, but this was fun and quite a workout for my tender brain. This was quite awesome, everyone! Thanks for all the prompts. Thanks for the challenge, Robert. ^^